Romania B. Pratt Penrose

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Romania B. Pratt Penrose
Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania
Spouse(s)Parley P. Pratt Jr.
Charles W. Penrose
Children7
ParentsLuther B. Bunnell
Esther Mendenhall
Signature 

Dr. Esther Romania Bunnell Pratt Penrose (August 8, 1839 – November 9, 1932) was a leading figure in

Latter-day Saint (LDS) and Utah culture during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She is widely known for being the first LDS woman to receive an MD degree and for being the first woman to be a medical doctor in the state of Utah.[1][2]

Early life

Romania Bunnell was born in

New Market, Missouri. After a short stay here they went to Ohio, where Luther Bunnell had been born.[5] After hearing stories of gold in California, Luther Bunnell went west in 1849, where he worked in gold diggings but died of typhoid fever in the process. Romania Bunnell and family then moved to Crawfordsville, Indiana. From the ages of ten to sixteen, Romania attended the Quaker-sponsored Western Agricultural School in Ohio and then the Female Seminary in Crawfordsville, Indiana.[1]

Because of concerns regarding non-Mormon influences on her children, specifically that Romania would perhaps marry an admirer of another faith, her mother sold their home in Crawfordsville and moved her family to Utah.[6] Romania Bunnell was baptized in Atchison, Kansas on May 31, 1855, shortly before moving to Utah Territory.[7] She went west with her mother, sister, and two brothers in the John Hindley company.[8] They traveled for four long months before arriving in the Salt Lake Valley.[1] Shortly after arriving in Utah, Bunnell taught in Brigham Young's school.[3] In 1857 Romania's mother went back to Indiana to collect money owed to the family and left Romania in charge of her younger siblings for six months. Then shortly after her mother's return the family relocated from Salt Lake City to Provo, Utah during the evacuation caused by the approach of Johnston's Army.[9]

Marriage and family

On February 23, 1859, she married her first husband, Parley P. Pratt Jr., the eldest son of Parley P. Pratt. Over the next several years Romania and Parley had seven children, five of whom lived to adulthood.[10]

In 1881 Romania and Pratt were divorced.[1] She married her second husband, Charles W. Penrose, on March 11, 1886. He would later be a member of the First Presidency of the LDS Church.[11] She was his third wife.[1]

Becoming a medical doctor

Midwife bag belonging to one of Penrose's students

In 1873 Romania heard President

Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, leaving her five children in the care of her mother. Her willingness to become a doctor was partly the result of having two children who died before the age of three. Knowing the pain that she went through with the loss of her young children, Romania did not want other mothers to experience that same heartache. With the understanding that there was a great need for more skilled doctors in Utah, she wanted to make a difference and help relieve suffering and pain whenever possible.[6]

Romania showed great promise in her classes at the Women's Medical College in New York City during her first semester of observations, but she still felt that she was already lagging behind her classmates. During the summer following her first experience in college, Romania worked ardently to not only catch-up to her classmates but to surpass them in medical expertise. While they were enjoying summer vacation, Romania worked hard enough to be the first woman admitted to

President of the Relief Society Eliza R. Snow who, along with other Relief Society sisters in Zion, helped gather money to send Romania back to the east to finish her schooling.[1] Being short on money, Romania returned to college in the east but did so at the Women's College of Pennsylvania.[6]

While in school, Romania studied many different medical topics: surgery, diseases of women, anatomy, chemistry, toxicology, microscopy, obstetrics, etc. Early in her college years she found great interest in learning about the eye and ear, but could not yet choose a specialized field. During the summers she spent time at the hospital for women in Boston. On March 15, 1877, Romania graduated with her Doctorate in medicine.[4] She was the first Mormon woman to earn a medical degree. Before returning home after graduation, Dr. Pratt stayed in Boston but now turned her focus to studies of the eye, ear, nose, and throat. After returning to Utah Territory, she trained women in medical fields, specifically midwifery. She also performed the first successful cataract surgery in the Midwest. Later on she would write informative medical articles for the Woman's Exponent and the Young Woman's Journal.

Romania continued to seek knowledge and occasionally would return to the east in order to attend lectures at the Eye and Ear Infirmary in New York.[1]

Church and medical leadership

Prior to taking up her study of medicine, Penrose had been the president of the Retrenchment Association of one of the wards in Salt Lake City. The Retrenchment Association was a predecessor of the LDS Church's Young Woman's Organization.

In 1881, Romania was called as the treasurer of the

Bathsheba Smith.[12] Romania served as general secretary of the Relief Society on the Relief Society Central Board for more than 30 years.[6] She was also one of three instructors for the Relief Society Nurses Department.[13] In 1889 when Susa Young Gates started the Young Woman's Journal she recruited Penrose to write a column for it on health and hygiene.[14]

From 1906 to 1910, Penrose accompanied her husband as he presided over the European Mission. She became the first wife of the mission president to be the president of the relief society in the European mission, as she oversaw the organization of LDS relief societies for the first time in Europe.

Women's suffrage

Romania was involved in the

International Woman Suffrage Alliance conference in Amsterdam
.

Death

After more than 35 years in the medical field, Dr. Pratt Penrose retired in 1912. Thirteen years after her retirement, Charles died on May 17, 1925. Romania outlived her husband by seven years and became blind with old age. She died at her son Mark's home in Salt Lake City on November 9, 1932, at the age of 93.[1][4] She was buried at Salt Lake City Cemetery.[15]

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-0-874-21287-7
    .
  2. ^ The Deseret Weekly. Deseret News Co. 1891. p. 243.
  3. ^ a b c d e "Romania B. Pratt Memoirs, 1881". jared.pratt-family.org. Retrieved May 21, 2015.
  4. ^ a b c "First Utah Woman Doctor Succumbs". Deseret News. Salt Lake City. November 10, 1932. p. 9. Retrieved March 6, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ Orson F. Whitney's history of Utah
  6. ^
    ISBN 1-57008-307-X
    . Retrieved March 6, 2024 – via Internet Archive.
  7. ^ Carter, Kate B., ed. (1963). Our Pioneer Heritage. Vol. 6. Salt Lake City, Utah: Utah Printing Company. pp. 364–368. Retrieved March 6, 2024 – via Internet Archive.
  8. ^ Press, The Church Historian's. "Esther Romania Bunnell - Pioneer Overland Travel". churchofjesuschrist.org. Retrieved October 10, 2016.
  9. ^ Orson F. Whitney's bio of Penrose
  10. ISBN 0-8425-0708-6
    .
  11. ^ "Utah, Obituaries from Utah Newspapers, 1850-2005", database, FamilySearch, October 8, 2015, Charles W Penrose, May 19, 1925; citing Box Elder News, The University of Utah. J. Willard Marriott Library, Salt Lake City. (subscription required)
  12. ISBN 0028796004
    . Retrieved March 6, 2024 – via Internet Archive.
  13. ^ Conference Report, LDS Church, October 1906, p. 59
  14. Matthew J. Grow
    , et al., Saints, Vol. 2, No Unhallowed Hand (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2020) p. 583
  15. Salt Lake Telegram
    . November 11, 1932. p. 5. Retrieved March 6, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
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